site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29078 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

That doesn't help the issue of people with empty wallets and full bladders/large intestines. If there is no legitimate place in public where people can relieve themselves without spending any money, everyone else will have to navigate a bio-hazardous obstacle course on the side-walk.

My recommendation:

  1. Tax businesses who do not offer public bathrooms (defined as allowing anyone to come in, use the toilet, and leave without buying anything).
  2. Use the revenue from the tax to fund (a.) subsidies for businesses who do offer public restrooms (as defined above), or (b.) construction and maintenance of free-at-point-of-use public toilets.
  3. Once there are plenty of places where one can empty one's excretory organs without spending anything, it will be much more justifiable to take strong measures against those who continue to No. 1 on walls or No. 2 on the pavement.

Once there are plenty of places where one can empty one's excretory organs without spending anything, it will be much more justifiable to take strong measures

If it turns out that political considerations keep you from doing those strong measures, will you give the businesses a refund on their taxes? My guess is no.

"Part one: hurt people by making them do X, part 2: ameloriate the harm from part 1" is a terrible idea because it's easy to say you'll do part 2 without actually doing it. The most charitable scenario is that you're too optimistic, but in the real world sometimes people just lie about part 2 so they can get part 1,

If it turns out that political considerations keep you from doing those strong measures

...there will still be less excreta on the pavement, because some of the people previously doing their business there will now be using toilets. Even if it isn't a complete solution, we're still better off.

Part one: hurt people by making them do X, part 2: ameloriate the harm from part 1

My proposal isn't making anyone do anything. If you want to reserve your business's toilets to paying customers, I am not proposing to forbid that course of action!

Under the status quo, businesses are in a position isomorphic to the prisoners' dilemma:

  • if all businesses offer public toilets, I am better off than if none of them do, because there are fewer bowel movements on the ground.
  • However, if all the other businesses offer public toilets, it is in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers, and thus spend less on maintenance.
  • If none of the other businesses offer public toilets, it is also in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers.

Under my proposal, the extra taxes paid by businesses not offering public WCs would be reserved for the exclusive purpose of either directly providing facilities, or subsidising other businesses' provision thereof. (I apologise if that part wasn't clear.)

it's easy to say you'll do part 2 without actually doing it.

Hence the specific tax, from which businesses can make themselves exempt if they provide restrooms one can use without spending anything.

My proposal isn't making anyone do anything.

"If you don't do this, we will take some money from you at gunpoint" is making people do it.

"If you don't do this, we will take some money from you at gunpoint" is making people do it.

"If you don't do this, we will shut down your business at gunpoint" is making people do it. Regarding the issue at hand, laws that require retail businesses to offer restroom access to non-customers would count as 'making' someone do something.

The plan I am suggesting is (to quote the Rightful Caliph) a Something Sort Of Like Left-Libertarianism-ist alternative to more coercive measures.

(A Something Sort Of Like Left-Libertarianism-ist Manifesto, Slate Star Codex, December 2013)

It's an alternative, but it's not a non-coercive alternative. It's a differently coercive alternative. Still coercive.

Is it coercive to forbid someone from taking a No. 2 on the pavement?

It's only coercion in the sense of coercing the person who is directly doing harm. It's not coercing the pavement owner because the pavement is usually not private property and even if it is, forbidding the bum wouldn't impose costs on the property owner.

From the bottom of the ladder, the difference between 'direct harm' and 'indirect harm' looks rather academic.

All I see here is the Road to Serfdom. The further growth of the State by involving itself in all matters to solve issues it has created itself.

Why not simply relinquish the silly ban on paid public toilets and enforce the law as it exists? I'm sure

I guess that doesn't create thousands of jobs in the bureaucracy to manage the whole situation. But then if that's what we want we might as well get the benefit of that approach and empower the State to intern vagrants. Using state capacity to manage the results of not using it to actually solve problems is silly.

Why not simply relinquish the silly ban on paid public toilets and enforce the law as it exists?

Because I am trying to come up with a solution for the problem of 'providing restroom facilities to people who cannot pay for them'.

It is generally considered unacceptable (at least in the West) to put someone in a position in which they have no choice but to violate the law, and then punish them for doing so. As people do not cease to have bodily functions when they cannot legally perform them, there needs to exist places in which someone can exercise the Greater and Lesser Conveniences, even if they cannot pay to do so.

(I suppose one could allow private businesses to operate paid toilets, subject to taxation used to fund the free-at-point-of-use facilities....)

It is generally considered unacceptable (at least in the West) to put someone in a position in which they have no choice but to violate the law, and then punish them for doing so. As people do not cease to have bodily functions when they cannot legally perform them, there needs to exist places in which someone can exercise the Greater and Lesser Conveniences, even if they cannot pay to do so.

Homeless people aren't birthed into this world as penniless drug users at a corner in the business district. They chose to occupy that premium real estate because it affords them some other benefit. Typically the easy ability to harass people for money and targets for retail theft. He always had the option of staying where he is from where people know him and would let him use the bathroom. Or going to a shelter for the homeless and using that bathroom.

The important reframe of modern homelessness that will help just about understand what we are talking about is this: They are on premium real estate, and there is no right to use some of the best, most expensive land in the country in whatever way you desire. I cannot go to Lincoln Park and start a hot dog stand next to the lion's exhibit. There is no reason a homeless fellow should be able to occupy the same space and fill it with stink and feces instead of delicious Chicago dogs.

Homeless people aren't birthed into this world as penniless drug users at a corner in the business district.

No, but they are birthed into this world as human beings, made according to the image of God, and bearing the inalienable right to be treated as an end in themselves, rather than as an inconvenient obstacle. (There, but for the grace of God, go I....)

They chose to occupy that premium real estate because it affords them some other benefit. Typically the easy ability to harass people for money and targets for retail theft. He always had the option of staying where he is from where people know him and would let him use the bathroom. Or going to a shelter for the homeless and using that bathroom.

The important reframe of modern homelessness that will help just about understand what we are talking about is this: They are on premium real estate, and there is no right to use some of the best, most expensive land in the country in whatever way you desire. I cannot go to Lincoln Park and start a hot dog stand next to the lion's exhibit.

But if you start declaring parts of a city as 'no poors allowed', you're opening Pandora's Jar; homeless people not allowed in 'premium' areas --> more areas adopting the same policy --> poor people confined to 'Sanctuary Districts' like in that Star Trek episode with the Bell Riots --> razor-wire fences, mass graves, and U. N. investigations.

There is no reason a homeless fellow should be able to occupy the same space and fill it with stink and feces

No, they should do their $euphemism in a toilet; however, this requires that they be allowed to! If there are free-at-the-point-of-use toilets nearby, and a homeless person chooses to befoul the ground, it is justified to prosecute them.

Who said anything about them not being allowed to be a place? They are not allowed to be their while doing a thing no one else is allowed to: Permanently/Semipermanently occupying it. Often engaging in black market commerce. None of this has any things to do with bathrooms. It is fine for bathrooms in expensive areas and bathrooms in cheap areas to have different prices of entry. Again, the number of homeless people outside of a high end department store who are just walking to a job or a bus is approximately zero. They are there to peddle, steal, and commit various other legal infractions.

If you care so much about it, you're free to set up a donation fund and/or shelters that include such conveniences.

I don't see why the price couldn't be made so low as to be trivial even for vagrants, since, well, I've lived in places where that was the case. In the third world.

I really don't understand what makes people think it's okay to use violence to use other people's ressources to solve the problems they care about instead of just solving them with their own ressources.

Without arguing on the merits of this particular case, surely the answer is often "because I want the problem meaningfully improved, and I don't have enough personal resources for that". Or on the less morally pure side, "I don't see why I should have to bankrupt myself because everyone else selfishly refuses to do the right thing which would only cost them pennies each". Some pro-taxation people are idiots or hypocrites, yes, but trying to compel other people to use their resources in a way that you approve of is not in itself mad. I wish the Right were more open to it, they might achieve something.

What's mad is how people are under the illusion that the only way to achieve such ends is robbery. When people are perfectly willing to behave civically for prestige or social standing and have done so in countless civilizations, including some that exist right now.

But the "materialist" can't fathom the rewards of spirit and legacy, so things have to be obtained through force of arms, or not at all.

True, and I’m all for these things. The replacement of alms by tax-based welfare is something I’d love to know more about, and would surely make a good effort-post.

The materialist can fathom the rewards of spirit and legacy quite well. They just don't scale.

World spanning empires is not enough scale for you?

But even were it true, why is scale desirable for its own sake? The "reign of quantity" is indeed a madness. Men are not suited to be replaceable cogs of a immense machine, which is why our social institutions are always fractal.

Babel will not grow to the heavens.

Shouldn't have said "be fruitful and multiply" if He didn't want us to conquer as much space as we can for to house and feed the multiplying.

More comments

Why not simply relinquish the silly ban on paid public toilets and enforce the law as it exists?

Because political forces that want to accommodate vagrants won't let you enforce the law as it exists.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats